Eight Missouri ministers accused of sex abuse in Southern Baptist Conference report • Missouri Impartial

The Southern Baptist Conference on Thursday launched a once-secret and lengthy list of accused intercourse abusers — a number of of whom are in the Midwest — within the denomination.

The 205-page list is a compilation of ministers and different church employees who've been credibly accused of sexual abuse. The list is described as a “fluid, working document” that was also incomplete however largely pulls information about abusers from revealed news reviews.

The publication of the list comes after the release Sunday of a 300-page report by an impartial investigator that described how leaders of the Southern Baptist denomination for decades have obtained reports of sexual abuse committed by church staff, pastors and others. However those studies had been largely stored secret and, rather than acting upon and investigating reports of sexual abuse, denomination leaders sought to intimidate and vilify victims and their advocates.

“The entire thing must be seen for what it's,” wrote former Southern Baptist Conference govt committee member and basic counsel D. August Boto in an inside e mail that was printed within the report. “It’s a satanic scheme to fully distract us from evangelism.”

The crisis rocking the Southern Baptist denomination this week is comparable in some ways to what the Catholic church continues to face. Leaders in each faiths systematically hid information about sexual misconduct, appeared to show extra concern about their own authorized liability than the victims and at occasions did not expel accused abusers from positions of authority.

In 2007, Father Thomas Doyle, a Catholic priest credited as one of the first to warn of his personal denomination’s clergy sex abuse crisis, wrote a letter to SBC leadership conveying his concern that Southern Baptist leaders were repeating the failures of the Catholic church in coping with intercourse abuse.

Doyle was instructed, “Southern Baptist leaders truly haven't any authority over local church buildings,” a response that Doyle regarded as dismissive, in keeping with the investigative report. 

That very same 12 months, at the SBC convention in San Antonio, Oklahoma pastor Wade Burleson made a motion to create a database of Southern Baptist clergy who had been convicted or credibly accused of, or had confessed to sexual abuse. The proposal was meant to “help in stopping any future sexual abuse or harassment.”

The database proposal appeared to go nowhere, according to the report, and witnesses at the convention recalled little about it except to express their opinion that it would “violate local church autonomy.”

Ultimately, a staffer for the SBC executive committee since 2007 had maintained an inventory of accused ministers and church employees, nevertheless it was saved hidden from the public and even SBC executive committee trustees, according to the report.

Southern Baptist leaders said publicizing the listing of credibly accused abusers represented “an preliminary, however necessary, step in the direction of addressing the scourge of sexual abuse and implementing reform within the Convention.”

“Every entry in this listing reminds us of the devastation and destruction caused by sexual abuse,” stated a joint assertion from Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, both SBC executive committee members. “Our prayer is that the survivors of those heinous acts find hope and therapeutic, and that church buildings will utilize this record proactively to protect and care for probably the most vulnerable among us.”

Attorneys for the SBC government committee researched the record of accused abusers, taking steps to confirm data it contained. It left unredacted entries about alleged abusers that might be confirmed, while redacting entries where somebody was acquitted or did not have a ultimate disposition, as well as information that might identify victims.

Missouri males characteristic prominently on the checklist. They include:

This story comes from the Midwest Newsroom, an investigative journalism collaboration including IPR, KCUR 89.3, Nebraska Public Media Information, St. Louis Public Radio and NPR. For extra in-depth information from Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, we invite you to comply with us on Twitter.